Psychological profile related to malignant tumours of different histopathology.

In a previous preoperative study of patients with gliomas, we made the original observation that patients with high grade as opposed to those with low-grade gliomas have a psychological profile marked by extreme emotional reactivity. Tn this postoperative study of the psychological profiles of patients with breast cancer, the main funding was unexpectedly analogous with the findings in the brain tumour study. The patients with poorly differentiated ductal carcinomas showed a specific and, compared to the patients with well differentiated carcinomas, outstanding psychological profile marked by extreme emotional reactivity as well as by genuine creativity. Some of the present patients with well differentiated carcinomas showed personality profiles marked by compulsive inhibition, also described earlier in the literature of patients with breast cancer. The psychobiological relations between emotional reactivity and aggressiveness of tumour growth are discussed. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.